UNISCON 2009, Panel 1

Wednesday, 23 April 2009

4.20 – 6.00 PM

Paving New Roads for Information System Research

• What are the emerging research areas in information system?

• How will, or should, these research be driven - by curiosity, need, or technology?

See the blog.

Moderator

• San Murugesan, Multimedia University/University of Western Sydney

Panellists

• Michael Rosemann, QueenslandUniversity of Technology, Australia
• Ralf-D Kutsche, TU Berlin, Germany

• András Pataricza, BudapestUniversity of Technology and Economics, Hungary
  

• Brian Henderson-Sellers, University of TechnologySydney, Australia
• Simeon Simoff, University of Western Sydney

Research and innovation is widely recognised as a key driver of our progress, growth and well being; specifically, more emphasis is now placed on research and innovation than ever before by academia, industry and the governments. There are many examples of research and innovation in IS and in other areas that made major positive impact on us and changed fundamentally our life, our work and our well-being, and the society at large. For example, the Web, which is a game-changer and a common household name now, was born from a research project, “Information Management: A Proposal” by Sir Tim Berners Lee then at CERN, France. We can cite many other examples that benefited us immensely. But academic research has also been receiving criticisms that much of the past and current research work at universities doesn’t address our real problems, meets our real needs, or does serve any useful purpose, and is a drain on our precious resources; this criticism is perhaps valid. Hence much emphasis is now being placed on relevance, significance and potential impact or benefits of research to business, nation or the society at large. We are now required to identify and work on real problems or on potential high impact research problems or areas. However, even identifying such research problems or areas in advance is a challenge and calls for radical thinking.

So, in an attempt to address this need and the challenge, in this panel, let’s pave new roads for IS research by answering the following two key questions and debating our answers:

1. What are the emerging research areas in information systems?

2. How will, or should, this research be driven - by curiosity, need, or technology?

Join us on the panel at the conference, or now at the online forum at the blog, and share your insights, ideas and feedback and comments. A summary of online discussion will the presented at the panel.

Let’s together pave new roads for IS research!